Dubious Consent
by PurpleMoon3
Summary: Loki is tired. Gabriel is shopping for a new vessel. Thor always thought angels were just stories to scare little aesir into behaving.


**Dubious Consent**

**A Thor, Supernatural Crossover**

**Disclaimer: _Thor_ is MARVEL's baby. _Supernatural_ is a television (and anime, and comic) series created by Eric Kripke and the CW. Purplemoon3, however, makes nothing but feels from these fanworks.**

**A/N- This story was spawned from yet another prompt on the kinkmeme which asked for post-Avengers Loki being depressed and tired and saying Yes to in-need-of-vessel Gabriel. **

Loki was alone in his cell when It came. The brightness woke him from the fever dreams, a shining form of pure power, and feathers that sizzled touched his cheek. It shouldn't have been possible. The walls of the dungeon were built to absorb magic, all those contained within used to feed the needs of the city, and even the simplest illusion was beyond Loki. A being of pure energy such as the Light creature shouldn't have been able to set foot near the cursed stonework without stuttering out like a blown candle.

_You look like shit. I am offended on behalf of Lokis everywhere._

Loki winced as the words burned into his mind. He would have liked to reply, to make his tongue into a whiplash to wound, but the muzzle Thor had fitted him with, one that none had seen need to remove, prevented his rebuttal. He glared and tried to convey his questions through body language. It was a far more subtle art than grappling and thus one he had deemed worthy of his time.

_Hmm. Not sure... see, my big brother tried to kill me. Rammed my own fucking sword straight through my chest... but then I'm not exactly an angel anymore. Went a little native. Stole a power-source or two. Got adopted more times than is advisable- but what can I say? I make a cute kid._ There was a thoughtful pause and Loki felt as though a hand was rifling through his brain._ You know you're nine kinds of crazy, right?_

Despite the chains and gag and general griminess of his prison, Loki raised an eyebrow and managed to look down his nose at the being.

_Sheesh. Batten those hackles, Miss Priss. Seems like we have one or two things in common, say... brothers we'd rather avoid? And I've got a proposition for you._

Loki regally inclined his head and listened as the creature explained what it needed. A body. It was incapable of interacting with the physical world without doing severe damage; except for a few select, special people with the inborn ability to see and hear them. But the idea of that much power just floating around, free for the asking was tempting in so many ways. Gabriel, as the being called itself, required a vessel. Only, if the hybrid creature was to be believed, Loki would likely be pushed down. Forever asleep if not burned out entirely by the raw energy that was Gabriel's spirit.

Yet, Loki was tired. He did not want to spend the rest of existence in the depths of Asgard's dungeons, just another living battery for the city, and yet he was too tired to fight about it. He no longer had the strength to bear arms even if he wanted to.

Perhaps this had been Odin's plan all along. Train up a Jotun sorcerer, build his strength, and then lock him away at first opportunity and make it seem like a mercy sentence of community service instead of a quick execution.

Loki did not want to be Loki anymore. He just wanted everything to be over. Loki could not speak, but he closed his eyes and nodded submissively to the creature, to Gabriel. The spirit poured in like liquid fire, exciting numbed nerves and turning metal cuffs to slag, and Loki knew no more.

* * *

SHIELD doesn't notice at first. They can't really be blamed with Manhattan in shambles, clean up needed for decomposing space whales that are probably rife with alien disease, and various governments/organizations clamoring for explanation. Aside from all that SHIELD is a global organization meant to safeguard the planet. The Incidents are too small to garner their attention. A man goes missing, and returns half crazed can be attributed to stress and a mental break down. An abused child walks into a police station to inform officers that the nice man told him his mother was a bitch, and then gave him a doggy. The Incidents are all little things, personal things, that don't register because they can all be attributed to selfish human nature.

It takes a while for the cases to land on Fury's desk. It is the oddness that finally makes it over to SHIELD and the belief that some_thing_ was the cause of it all.

And the whispers of a man sometimes reported talking to the children, or the neighbors, or the battered wife/husband/girlfriend. A man who matches Loki's description.

It takes them even longer to pry out what all the cases have in common, Widow is the one that gets assigned to cracking the witnesses, but it starts to form a pattern even if they can't think of why. The Trickster, because they don't yet know for sure it is Loki and that is the name that no one remembers offering yet still got accepted, targets seemingly upstanding members of the community and shatters them completely. Mentally. Physically. Socially. The Trickster drags them through the mud and more often than not leaves them dead or wishing they were. And he does it with a flair for the ironic and darkest of humors. Wife beaters are beaten. Rapists raped, sometimes by Roswell Grays and sometimes conjured Tentacle Beasts. During SHIELD's investigations they find more than a few stashes of child pornography. The list goes on. No one in SHIELD feels particularly sorry for the bastards that end up in hospitals, mental or otherwise, but they can't just let an unknown force do what it wants.

Until they track down the Trickster's latest shop. He likes to move in for a month or two and scope out the area, they've noticed, looking for potential victims.

Agent Barton is the one that calls it in.

His hair is different, shorter and curly, and he isn't wearing the princely regalia from his world-conqueror phase. He's in rumpled jeans and a t-shirt with a light weight grey-green jacket thrown over it all like an after thought. He is idly twirling a feather duster in one hand -he is posing as a janitor, and that has the psych department screaming like school girls- while watching a playground of children with a stupid grin on his face. They peg him as Loki, try not to draw attention to themselves thus starting a fight with civilians so near, and as though the name passing their lips was a summons Thor arrives days later.

He confronts Loki while the other is walking to his car. There is a skip in the Trickster's step and he grins wide when Thor throws him hard enough against the vehicle to dent.

"Hey! Fancy seeing you here, Mr. Over-Compensation." Loki chirps while eying Thor's raised hammer meaningfully.

Thor frowns, anger swallowing up the sadness that had been on his face. "Do not jest with me, brother! Did you not think we would notice your cowardly flight-?"

Loki's snort cuts him off. "Puh-leeze. Considering Loki-boy's life force was powering over half your city it would be hard not to notice. Even muscle-bound dunces like you would be aware of the plumbing going off."

They have parabolic microphones, radios, hidden cameras, and no one in HQ knows just what to make of that statement. Neither, it seems, does Thor.

"Brother," The Asgardian starts with confusion only for Loki to cut him off again.

"_Not_ your brother." It is an argument everyone's heard between them, but this time it is different. Loki takes hold of Thor's wrists with a deceptively gentle grasp and makes the larger man release him. "_My_ brother stabbed me in the chest, with my own sword no less, so I had to shop around for a new body. This meat suit was the most compatible at time, not to mention agreeable. Gotta say, Thunderbird, I only ever met two other people filled with more self-loathing than Loki. Not the smartest thing to do, leave a suicidally insane person all alone in someplace dank and dark with nothing to do but think about how much they screwed up. It's _ridiculously_ easy to get them to agree to, well, just about anything."

Understanding dawns, and with it a rage that causes storm clouds to roll in. "You leave my brother now, spirit, or I swear..."

"What?" Not-Loki smiles serenely and dances away from Thor. "Even if I felt so inclined, which I _don't-_ do you have any idea how hard it is to find a viable vessel these days? Even if I did leave, he's already dead. I kinda had to make room for myself, you know? All you'd have left is a shell. Not even enough energy to flick on the lights. Completely useless to Odin, to Asgard, nothing but a waste of space and resources. So."

He snapped his fingers.

There was a flash of light and when everyone could see again the Trickster was gone. Tears were cascading down Thor's face.

"Thor, who was that?"

He swallowed thickly. "It was- a legend. A whisper. I had not thought them real... and it is wearing my brother's skin."

"_Thor._ What was he?"

"A servant. A messenger. A soldier."

"Buddy, you gotta be more specific-"

"You would call it an Angel."

"Oh. Oh, _Jesus Christ_."

Thor looked to the sky, to where he imagined Heimdall would be watching, and let out a hushed, broken, "Yes."

End.


End file.
